Comet A3

Comet (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)

The Bright Comet of 2024

Comet A3
Comet C2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) on Oct. 13, 2024

The anticipated brightening of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) for northern hemisphere observers began in late September 2024. True to predictions the comet brightened as it entered the inner solar system and approached perihelion. The comet was poised for a great showing in the evening sky after sunset for a week to ten days beginning on October 12, 2024.

Comet A3
Comet C2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) Oct. 12, 2024

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) moved into the constellation Serpens Caput by Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. It was only a little over 1 degree (The width of the tip of your little finger at arm’s length) away from the globular cluster M5 on this evening. The following is a screen capture of the comet and M5 as predicted in Stellarium.

CometA3 and M5 on Oct. 15, 2024
Comet A3 and M5 on Oct. 15, 2024

The weather was not the best on Tuesday evening October 15, 2024. We had a cool front blowing through with 15-25 mph gusts and the Moon was just about full helping to wash out the comet but I managed to get ten 5 second shots that I could stack in Sequator along with 5 darks. I did some processing in Adobe Camera RAW and the result is below.

Comet A3
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) and globular cluster M5.

The shot above has a couple of things going for it. It reveals the globular cluster M5, the faint smudge to the right of the comet’s nucleus and you can just make out the anti-tail stretching down in front of the comet. The anti-tail appears to protrude from the opposite direction of the normal tail that is easily seen stretching upward in the photo. I used a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer 2i to track the comet, Nikon 5100 and Nikon telephoto lens to shoot A3.

You can find a few more images I took of Comet A3 and additional details about the comet on my dedicated Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) page.